Month: December 2015

Earlier this week I started to give out some fake awards to films I saw this year, and the list got so long that I decided to split it into two posts. I started to remember all the films I saw this year, so here are the rest of my fake awards, which I’m writing up as I watch a Person of Interest marathon on FX Australia. It’s ridiculously hot outside, and I’m looking after some dogs this New Year’s Eve, which is a pretty great gig.

This is going to be another short one, because my sister gave me video games for Christmas. My current obsession is Banished. Anyway, back to Jane. This week Rogelio finds himself in financial difficulties, Jane and Rafael go on a date, and Jane gets drunk at her grad school Christmas party, because it’s the first time that she’s had any alcohol since she stopped nursing. This episode picks up almost exactly where the previous one left off, or at least the next day, which is Black Friday – this episode was sponsored by Target. My analogy for Black Friday is Boxing Day sales, but on a much larger scale. I also refuse to go on the first day of Boxing Day sales, because you can go two days later and still pretty much get everything you need without the claustrophobia or getting injured.

I’m writing this after having seen the next episode, so this is going to be a short review – I’m mainly trying to keep the two separate in my mind – which is a shame, because this was a very good episode. It wasn’t up there with Mateo’s baptism, but it was an episode about family, which is what Jane the Virgin does best. Perhaps my mistake was to wait two weeks before watching this episode, but Christmas is a really busy time of year. It was really brave of the writers to tell six months’ worth of story in one episode, but it got the show’s timeline up to date with our calendar (at least in Australia’s delayed telecast), and it does that without losing any of what makes this show great.

I don’t have New Year’s Resolutions, but I did make a list of goals at the beginning of the year: read some nonfiction (I got to three books), write every day, and see more film. I read a lot when I was growing up, so my film credentials aren’t great. Then I started listening to the /Filmcast, and I made an effort to go and see some of the films they talked about. I managed to see every Best Picture nominee for the Oscars, but not every film that was nominnated, because this is not my full-time job, and I got sick of biopics after seeing Selma, The Imitation Gameand The Theory of Everythingin the space of two weeks. This is going to be a reflection of films I saw this year, some of which were released this year – some of those are 2014 films elsewhere in the world – some were not. So I’m making up awards for some of these films because I can.

This is going to be a very short review, because I don’t really have much to say about Joy, David O. Russell’s latest feature to star Jennifer Lawrence. I haven’t read any reviews of the film yet – the film finished less than an hour ago – aside from the fact that I’d heard that Joy wasn’t great. Russell’s previous two feature films, both of which starred Lawrence and Bradley Cooper were critical darlings – Silver Linings Playbook won Lawrence her first Oscar, and Lawrence, Cooper, Christian Bale and Amy Adams were all nominated for their work in American Hustle – and Joy is just… there. This is a shame, not only because of the people who were involved in making the film, but because Joy Mangano’s story is a great one to adapt to film.

It’s December, and the thing the internet loves the most at this time of year is the end-of-year Best Of list, so they can disagree with them. This is my first time writing such a list, and it’s difficult. I thought about writing a separate list for Australian shows, but I don’t want to ghettoise them, so they’re in here too. There are things that aren’t on here because I don’t watch them (The Walking Dead, Hannibal) or haven’t had time to catch up (Transparent, The Leftovers, Parks and Recreation), so just know I haven’t forgotten them. I didn’t forget anything, there’s a reason I left it off. Fargo isn’t on here because while I thought it was very good, I didn’t love it – although Kirsten Dunst did give one of the best performances of the year. My favourite show of the year has the top spot, everything else is in alphabetical order. Hopefully the shows I’ve collected here are a good range of the different things I’m enjoying right now. Writing a Top 10 list is hard, and while I’m only super passionate about half to two-thirds of the shows on this list, they’re all here for a reason. I’ve written about all of these shows previously, so there’s just going to be a paragraph about why each one is there, with some links to some things I’ve written. My only warning is that if you watch the “Best episodes” of the show, you will be spoiled for some plot developments.

Merry Christmas everyone! I’m house sitting for the evening and the wifi doesn’t want to behave tonight, so this is just a short greeting on my phone. I really should have spent the time I had from 1-2 pm finishing my top 10 list instead of dancing to the Meg Mac Live at the Wireless set on triple j. Actually that was pretty great and it’s Christmas, so I’m not going to fight the signs that I should relax. Or just listen to more Meg Mac, which is definitely a valid option.